Possession (Bromfield)/Chapter 25
The prediction of young Callendar came true, for in the morning, while Ellen sat in a purple wrapper practising her scales, the bell rang suddenly and into the room came Mrs. Callendar, dressed coquettishly in a very tight black suit, a hat much too large for her short, plump figure, and a voluminous stole of sable. The climb up the two flights of stairs above the elevator had been very nearly too much for her and she greeted Ellen with much panting and blowing.
"Good morning, my dear," she said. "I hope you're none the worse for last night's experience."
Ellen smiled respectfully and bade her guest seat herself in the padded arm chair that was the property of Clarence. "I'm all right again. I can't imagine what could have made me faint. I'm sorry. It must have spoiled the party."
At this Mrs. Callendar, settling herself in the chair, chuckled, "Not at all. Not at all. They'll talk of it for days. You could not have done better. It was dramatic . . . dramatic."
"I'm all right. You needn't have come. It is good of you."
"Perhaps you lace too tightly," suggested Mrs. Callendar, returning to the subject of Ellen's collapse.
"I don't lace at all," said Ellen. "I can't play if I'm all boxed in."
Mrs. Callendar threw back her stole and nodded her head sagely. "You're much wiser, my dear. Much wiser. When I was a girl I was famous for my waist. Sixteen inches it was . . . only sixteen inches." And she brought together her plump fingers in a gesture which implied that once she might have encircled her waist with her two hands. "But I fainted. . . . I used to faint daily. I don't lace tightly any more, but it makes no difference. It's just stayed that way. You see, my corsets are quite loose." And she thrust a finger into the space between her ample bosom and her corset to prove her statement. "I know my figure is bad in these days. Too many curves and too little height. But I'm past forty and it doesn't matter so much."
Secretly Ellen must have compared the figure of her guest with that of her own vigorous mother. Mrs. Tolliver was ten years the older, yet her appearance was that of a woman much younger than Mrs. Callendar. It was in this difference that the Levantine blood of the latter betrayed her. She was a friendly woman, certainly, and one who was quite sure of herself, fortified clearly by the conviction that the king can do no wrong.
"You shouldn't have climbed the stairs just to see if I was all right."
"But you see," said Mrs. Callendar, "I'm interested in you. Sanson tells me you have a great future. He doesn't tell me such things if he doesn't believe them. . . . But don't let that turn your head. Nothing comes without work . . . least of all, anything to do with the arts."
For a moment Ellen did not reply. At last she said, thoughtfully, "I know that."
"You are bitter," observed Mrs. Callendar, "and perhaps unhappy," she added with a shrewd glance of her near sighted eyes. "Well, that's a good thing. It shows character, and no artist ever existed without character. Character is the thing that counts." Here, having regained her breath, she rose and placing the lorgnettes against her slanting eyes, she wandered to the window. "It's a fine view you have from here," and after a moment's consideration, "Not so fine as it appears at first. Too many locomotives and signboards. You see," she added, turning toward the girl, "I came here this morning for other reasons too. I own the Babylon Arms."
"So your son told me."
"But I've never seen it before. I'm only in New York for a month or two at a time. I own a great deal of property here and there. I don't have to look at it. I have a good agent . . . a young Jew, trustworthy . . . a fellow who knows values up and down. I pay him well and he knows that if he played me a trick, I'd throw him out at once. Oh, I can trust him. Besides, I'm a Levantine myself and in every Levantine there is a Jew hidden away. We understand each other . . . Minsky and I. It's a fine building but the elevator ought to run all the way up. Then I could charge you more rent. I suppose there's no room for it. The architect made these upper floors too fancy. No eye for comfort and common sense."
And having uttered this torrent of opinions, she returned to the plush chair and said, "But tell me about yourself. I have a terrible curiosity about people. You're American, aren't you?"
"Yes," replied Ellen. There was about this preposterous visitor a quality that was irresistible. It was impossible to know whether you liked or disliked her, because she gave you no time to consider. Even if you decided against her, it availed nothing; she swept over you with the persuasion of a mountain torrent . . . a powerful woman and one whose friendliness was disarming. For a moment or two, the absurd thought that she might have been drinking lingered in Ellen's mind.
"Well," observed Mrs. Callendar, "some day this raw country is going to produce a superb art. Maybe you're one of the first artists. Who can say?" Fumbling in the reticule of black jet she brought out at last a tiny cigarette case, made of onyx with the name Thérèse in small diamonds, a bizarre box which in the possession of a woman less powerful and less foreign would have been vulgar. "I suppose you smoke?"
"No," said Ellen, "I never have."
"Well, you will." And she thrust the case back into the reticule. "You don't mind if I do?"
"Certainly not." Ellen brought out the small table consecrated to the smoking apparatus of her husband. It was a violation of Clarence's principles. On this subject he had spoken to Ellen many times, saying always, "Women who smoke are all of one kind."
"Wouldn't you have a cup of tea or a bit of cake?" asked Ellen. "I owe you something for the climb up the stairs."
"Thank you, no. Not at this hour of the day, and besides there is my figure to consider. It is real suffering to possess at the same time a tendency toward fat and an appetite for rich food."
She paused for a moment to breathe in the smoke of the tiny scented cigarette. All this time her eyes, aided by the lorgnettes, had been roving the room, as if somewhere within its walls she might find other clues to Ellen's history. To Ellen this action must have been disconcerting, especially since the drooping lid which half concealed one eye of the visitor made it impossible ever to know in what direction or in what object she was interested.
"But tell me about yourself," she continued. "You like Sanson?"
"He is a good teacher."
"No monkey business about him . . . no fanfaronade and nonsense. I've known him a great many years. I see him in Paris more often than here. He's not so busy over there."
Ellen sat on the edge of her chair, like a school girl in the presence of an elderly aunt. In the age and self-possession of her guest there was some quality which caused her to feel an awful sense of youth and inexperience. "I'm going to Paris to study in a year or two," she said modestly. It was almost as if Mrs. Callendar had the power of making her enact a rôle.
"Of course. So you must. Nobody here would pay to hear an American musician. And you must take a foreign name. That's important. Some day it won't be. But it is now. We're still afraid to trust ourselves. People spend money for names as well as music. You must have a good foreign name, the fancier the better so long as it doesn't sound like a music hall. Have you any friends over there?"
"I have a cousin." Her manner was better now, a little more contained and far less shy, for the amazing friendliness of Mrs. Callendar had begun to accomplish the inevitable effect. This dowager was perhaps the first woman in all the city who had been friendly toward her, the first woman who had not been a little on her guard, a little uncertain . . . the way Bunce's wife was uncertain and hostile. And there was something in the manner of Mrs. Callendar which must have reminded Ellen of her mother . . . a certain recklessness, a quality that was quite beyond barriers of any sort.
"Is the cousin male or female?" asked Mrs. Callendar, "because in Paris it makes a difference."
"Female," replied Ellen.
"Indeed! Perhaps I know her?"
"Her name is Shane," said Ellen. "Lily Shane."
For a time Mrs. Callendar regarded the blue smoke of her cigarette in silence, thoughtfully. "Shane," she murmured. "Shane? I don't think I know any one named Shane? I know most of the Americans in Paris. Has she lived there long?"
"Many years."
"Shane? Shane?" Mrs. Callendar continued to murmur with an air of searching the recesses of her excessively active brain; and then, all at once, she grew alert. "Shane! Shane! Of course. Reddish hair. Tall. Beautiful. Madame Shane. I've never met her, but I've seen her somewhere. She's been pointed out to me . . . maybe at the races, maybe at the Opéra. Madame Shane . . . to be sure. A beauty! A widow, isn't she?"
There was in Ellen's reply no haste: indeed she waited for a long time as if turning the simple inquiry over and over in her mind. Lily a widow! Lily who had never been married! She did not, as her mother might have done, spring impulsively to a blundering answer. Perhaps out of her memory there emerged old thoughts, old gossip, bits of instinct and emotion which presently fashioned itself into a comprehensible pattern—such things as her own pride of race, the tribal sense that was so strong in her family, the memory of gossip about a child, indeed all those fragments of mystery which surrounded the existence of her cousin. When she replied it was calmly in a manner that protected Lily. "Yes," she said, "a widow. That's the one," as if nothing had occurred that was in the least surprising.
"A beautiful woman," continued Mrs. Callendar crushing out the ember of her cigarette upon the tray dedicated to the ashes of Clarence. "And now," she added, "coming to the point, I wanted to know whether you would come sometimes and play for me in the evenings. . . . Not a performance, you understand, but simply to play once in a while for me and perhaps my son and Miss Cane and one or two friends. . . . Miss Cane—you may remember her—came home with you last night . . . a clever woman. I'd pay you well . . . understand that. I'd like to have you once or twice a week. I don't go out frequently. I love music but I dislike musicians. You'll understand that when you come to see more of them."
For Ellen it was, of course, the opening of a new world in which she might become independent, a world such as she had imagined the city to be. It was as if, overnight, the whole course of her life had been changed. There were chances now, subtle, hidden gambits for which she had an instinct.
"Yes," she replied quietly. "I think I could arrange it to come."
"And very likely," said Mrs. Callendar, "I could get other engagements for you." She had risen now and was wrapping the sable stole about her short fat neck. "I'll let you know when I'll want you to come. I'll write you a note that will be a sort of contract between us. I believe in contracts. Never trust the human race. . . . And now good-by, Miss Tolliver. I'm glad you're all right again. You may have fainted out of fright. There were people there last night . . . stupid people . . . who would have frightened Rubinstein himself."
So Ellen thanked her, bade her good-by and walked with her to the top of the stairs. Half way down, Mrs. Callendar turned. "I suppose," she said with a rising inflection, "that you live here alone."
"No," said Ellen; but that was all she said, and Mrs. Callendar, smiling to herself, disappeared amused, no doubt, by the memory of the story which Sabine Cane had told her when she had returned across the park from the Babylon Arms.
Once the door was closed, Ellen flung herself into a chair and sat staring out of the window into the gray clouds that swept across the sky high above the North River. It must have occurred to her then that Mrs. Callendar had departed with an amazing amount of information . . . knowledge which concerned herself and her family, her future, her plans, even the details of the very flat in which she lived. Her guest had, after a fashion, absorbed her and her life much as a sponge absorbs water. By now Mrs. Callendar could doubtless have drawn a detailed and accurate picture of the flat and written a history of its occupant. Indeed she had very nearly tripped Ellen into one unfortunate truthfulness. That was a fascinating thought . . . Lily and her strange foreign life. Lily a widow? What were her morals? How did she live in Paris? Surely no one in the Town could have had the faintest idea. But Madame Shane! Still Mrs. Callendar might have been mistaken. It would have been, under the circumstances, a natural error. It was as though Lily was destined in some unreal fashion to play a part in Ellen's own life. Always she was there, or at least some hint of her. Even Clarence talked of her in a way he did not use when speaking of other women. Yet no one knew anything of Lily.
Smiling dimly she rose, and before returning to her music she took the brass ash tray containing the remains of Mrs. Callendar's scented cigarette and cleaned it thoroughly, taking care to bury the offending morsels well out of sight where Clarence could never find them. Certainly she performed this act through no fear of him. Rather it was with an air of secrecy as if already she and her visitor had entered into a conspiracy. It may have been only a touch of that curious understanding which flashes sometimes between persons of great character.